Language Comprehension as Structure BuildingThis research investigated the role of two structure building mechanisms in language comprehension. They are Suppression and Enhancement. The first series of experiments investigated the role of suppression in word understanding. The results demonstrated that the mechanism of suppression dampens the activation of the inappropriate meanings of ambiguous words; they do not decrease in activation simply because their activation is consumed by appropriate meanings or because they decay. A second series of experiments investigated the role of suppression in improving the accessibility of concepts marked by cataphoric devices. Cataphoric devices are counterparts to anaphoric devices: Anaphoric devices mark concepts that have been mentioned before, and cataphoric devices mark concepts that are likely to be mentioned again. The results demonstrated that when concepts are marked with cataphoric devices, like spoken stress and the indefinite this, they are better at suppressing the activation of other concepts, and they are more resistant to being suppressed by other concepts. A third series of experiments investigated the role of suppression and enhancement in adult comprehension skill. The results demonstrated that less-skilled comprehenders less-efficiently suppress the inappropriate meanings of ambiguous words, the incorrect forms of homophones, the typical-but-absent members of scenes, and words superimposed on pictures or pictures surrounding words. (SDW). |
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... Referential Coherence facilitate mapping ? 800 53 56 58 60 63 Does Temporal Coherence facilitate mapping ? Does Locational Coherence facilitate mapping ? Does Causal Coherence facilitate mapping ? The Process of Shifting Do ...
... Referential Coherence facilitate mapping ? 800 53 56 58 60 63 Does Temporal Coherence facilitate mapping ? Does Locational Coherence facilitate mapping ? Does Causal Coherence facilitate mapping ? The Process of Shifting Do ...
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Contents
The Advantage of First Mention | 10 |
Is the Advantage lost when first and secondmentioned | 17 |
versus Clause Recency | 25 |
Do first clauses form the foundation for their sentencelevel | 31 |
Do comprehenders represent clausal dependencies? | 39 |
The Communicative Function | 46 |
Does Referential Coherence facilitate mapping? | 53 |
Does Causal Coherence facilitate mapping? | 60 |
Why are the mechanisms of suppression and enhancement | 137 |
Do cataphoric devices improve their concepts | 145 |
Are cataphorically marked concepts more resistant | 151 |
Suppression and Enhancement | 161 |
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES | 167 |
Individual Differences in Accessing | 175 |
Individual Differences in Suppression | 185 |
Are lessskilled comprehenders less efficient at suppressing | 186 |
Do comprehenders quickly forget information after crossing | 70 |
Why do comprehenders quickly forget the exact form | 72 |
Do comprehenders build separate substructures to represent | 78 |
Chapter 4 | 84 |
Are inappropriate meanings mutually inhibited? | 94 |
Does suppression dampen less relevant associations | 104 |
How does an anaphors referent become most activated? | 110 |
Why are concepts as activated before pronouns as after? | 117 |
Do more explicit pronouns trigger suppression more powerfully? | 126 |
What about other levels of anaphoric explicitness? | 133 |
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Common terms and phrases
access to recently Advantage of Clause adverbial ambiguous words anaphoric reference ASHTRAY biased Bill handed cataphoric devices Clause Recency coherence inferences compre comprehenders hear Comprehension Skill context display demonstrate ESTIMATED ACTIVATION example experiment experimental concepts experimental sentences explicit anaphors Faust Figure first-mentioned participants gathered the kindling Gernsbacher henders homophones hypothesis illustrates inappropriate meanings indefinite left/right orientation less efficient less explicit less-skilled comprehenders meanings of ambiguous mechanism of suppression memory cells mental structures Mention more-skilled comprehenders narratives nonreferents nouns occur phrases picture stories predicted processes and mechanisms pronouns psycholinguistic reaction recently comprehended information recoded referentially coherent represented second clause second concepts second-mentioned participants semantic sentence sets shift speakers and writers spoken stress stimuli Structure Building Framework subjects read substructure suppression and enhancement syntactic tences test display test names appear test point test words tion trigger suppression two-clause sentence typically University of Oregon unrelated unstressed Verbal Verbal Behavior verbs zero anaphors